DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks return to the friendly confines of the American Airlines Center looking to take back ownership of a series that looked all but over.
While Dallas outperformed their expectations to take a 2-1 series lead with Luka Doncic out, the opening round series is now dead even after a one point victory by the Utah Jazz in Game 4 Saturday.
The loss spoiled the return of one of the most dynamic young players in the NBA but the Mavs shouldn’t feel deterred just yet.
Doncic began the third playoff series of his young career with a 30 point effort, adding 10 rebounds and four assists as he worked his way back from a calf strain that had sidelined him since April 10.
For better or worse, the Mavericks looked like a different squad with their best player back, as Dallas was forced to switch up their style of play to accommodate their MVP candidate. At halftime in Game 4, Dallas trailed 54-42 as the team got their feet under them.
Talk of a minutes restriction quickly subsided, however, with Doncic shooting 53% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc in 34 minutes played. After Dallas charged back to take a lead in the second half, the Jazz scored the final five points of the game to even up the series.
Jason Kidd has hitched his wagon to letting his players, especially Luka, call their own game. With Utah’s defensive alignment basically giving carte blanche to shots beyond the arc, the Mavericks will need to take advantage of open 3-pointers and continue feeding Maxi Kleber and company when the guards get sized up in the paint.
Kleber has been electric in this series from deep until he ran into foul trouble that completely neutralized him, as he was held to just four shot attempts in Game 4.
Meanwhile, the foul issues for Dallas led to the Jazz taking a mountain of free throw attempts that made it difficult to pull away in the second half. Even with the issues, Dallas only lost after a ferocious rally by Utah in the final seconds.
Despite the loss, Jalen Brunson continued his stellar series with 23 points to help answer some questions about how he would fare with Doncic’s return to the guard depth chart.
The Mavericks hope adding Doncic to Brunson’s 29.8 PPG playoff average may be too much for the Jazz to contain if they can close the significant gap in fouls between the teams.
His game-winning bucket in the last few seconds of Game 4 aside, Utah backbone center Rudy Gobert has looked overmatched by the quick Dallas guards at times.
A plan of continuing to attack the Jazz inside, and kicking out for open 3s, will be the Mavs’ best chance of regaining their series lead and coming one step closer to closing out the series and moving on to the conference semifinals.
Do you think the Mavericks will reclaim the series lead in Game 5? Share your predictions with Irvin on Twitter @Twittirv.